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There are some things in that list that I agree with, but many more that I don't think are needed.
Compatibility with Mythic Paths is a problem, but it is a problem for several classes, not just Summoner.
I'm glad that Ostentatious Arrival was changed to not cause damage to the Summoner.
Regarding extra reactions:
unlike classes like champion divine reflexes, rogue preparation, gunslinger Slinger's Reflexes, swashbucler Reflexive Riposte, ect ect,
I'm not sure how much fits into that 'etc etc' there. Feats that give extra reactions each round are rather rare. Most classes don't have one. The only ones that I am aware of that you missed are Fighter and Thaumaturge. I might be missing some in things like Commander or Exemplar. But still, I think there are more classes that don't have a feat to get an additional reaction each round than there are that do.
Many classes have issues with mythic, that's a mythic problem not summoner.
Eidolon opportunity, best reaction you could want.
Summoners call isn't terrible either.
Energy heart gives you options for different damage types. You already get extra damage from runes. Persistent damage almost always scales to be useless so bad idea.
Eidolon wrath is one of the best focus spells in the game, an auto scaling fireball -1d6. Nothing compares damage wise, just tricky to use.
Bloodletting claws as a feat line is a cool idea but the implementation is terrible. The persistent damage scaling is useless for the first feat. The rage is simple to trigger, just get a wounding rune, it's the fact it does -2 AC (barbarians don't even get a rage penalty anymore) and the damage buff isn't great for 2 feats.
Merciless rend is mostly just good for Dex Eidolons since they aren't losing die size for choosing to just use secondary attacks.It could be better, but you aren't getting more action compression or any MAP benefits with something like this.
The class desperately needs more Eidolon specific feats. Phantom has some options, there just needs to be some for every type of Eidolon.
If Bloodletting claws, blood frenzy and merciless rend were better it would be a good start for options to make your Eidolon good in melee. There's just not much room to min/max your Eidolon since they get nothing from archetypes. More monster or monster like abilities would be great. Special attacks for some types of Eidolons. Open some room for doing more then simple strikes in combat.
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Although I don't necessarily agree with all of the criticisms, I think the eventual Summoner remaster would be a good opportunity to improve a number of aspects of the class. Personally, I'd be interested in seeing many more eidolons, including an occult eidolon that's not just a phantom (like an aberration eidolon, for instance). I'd also quite like a proper synthesist class archetype or build for the Summoner, as that I think is a playstyle that could turn out really fun in 2e but would need a bit more support than just the Meld Into Eidolon feat.
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I assume they'll eventually get around to a secrets of magic remaster. Summoner is fairly strong as is. Some of the initial eidolon abilities are pretty boring though. I'd also like to see more stat spreads for the eidolons or even the ability to just choose the stats ourselves. Not sure why it has to be just one of 2 builds.
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I assume they'll eventually get around to a secrets of magic remaster. Summoner is fairly strong as is. Some of the initial eidolon abilities are pretty boring though. I'd also like to see more stat spreads for the eidolons or even the ability to just choose the stats ourselves. Not sure why it has to be just one of 2 builds.
It is highly unlikely there is going to be a Secrets of Magic Remaster. A chuck of it would have to be replaced. They'll probably be a whole new book covering that content.
I do agree that some more Occult Eidolons, as well as one that are not Phantoms.
Actually, now that Dragons are tied to all four traditions, many the Dragon Eidolon could cover more than just Arcane?
Actually, Summoner could also do with a few more options for Arcane alongside Occult, since Arcane is currently only represented by Dragon and Construct.
And like others have stated before, the issues Summoner has with Mythic are more an issue with Mythic, rather than Summoner.
...I just had a wacky thought, but what if Synergist was a Summoner Class archetype that combined Summoner with Magus?
No support for the summoner for the mythic paths - let's face it, there is no support for the summoner in the mythic paths and that makes summoners less likely to be picked, I mean what would you pick the ranger with beastlord dedication or apocalypse rider or an summoner who has nothing since none of the mythic paths were designed for character that uses 2 characters rather than an minion.
Kineticist has entered the chat.
I agree that this is a problem, but it's a problem with the Mythic rules and changing classes to fix it would require some really significant changes in multiple places vs "fix mythic".
Lack of reactions - Summoner unlike classes like champion divine reflexes, rogue preparation, gunslinger Slinger's Reflexes, swashbucler Reflexive Riposte, ect ect, lacks any ability to get additional reaction, throught any of feats, meaning you are stuck between either using aid and never using the reaction feats that summoner has like Protective Bond or Eidolon's Opportunity, would that be an great issue to introduce an feat that gives eidolon additional reactions, so that he could use theses while summoner uses his reation to either aid or do something else like casting shield cantrip?
Nah. "I want to be able to aid and also have reactions for other stuff" is not an even remotely compelling argument for another reaction. That's a choice you have to make.
Having to make choices with your actions is one of the core tactical considerations in PF2, so having a feat to just make that go away isn't making the game better.
Other stuff
Generally agree that there's issues with that stuff. Summoner has a lot of stuff that feels awkward or difficult to use vs some stuff that is just really good, so a tune up would be appreciated. It's a complex class and so a "remaster update" on it would go a long way to addressing some of the issues that have cropped up over the years.
Also some clarifications on things like if Eidolons can interact with mundane items or not.
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I suppose I'll crow about the Eidolon needing proper rules for item usage. As in, not asking for QoL or "help," but instead pointing to actual bugs in need of patching.
Right now, Eidolons do not inherit restrictions from minions or companions, but have slipshod bits of Eidolon-specific text that leave holes.
I can say that my GM green-lighting my Eidolon to hold and Activate alchemical items has been a decent lifeline for my Ruby Phoenix SMN.
At L15, the Eidolon kinda sucks at what it's supposed to do, like Striking. A familiar to Eidolon conveyor belt of daily alch items has genuinely helped keep the Act Together "advantage" usable.
(but it's already becoming a joke that my PC is the only one that keeps getting pancaked. I've already suffered getting 100% --> 0ed, despite the high level.)
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I also need to shout that Eidolons RaW need something to compensate for the lack of gear based passive power. The higher the Ls go up, the worse the "zero passives" gap becomes, and you get situations like your phantom Eidolon being an alch item monkey that hopes to also land a Reactive Strike or two.
(I've looked closely at buffing the Eidolon via temp effects, but it does not work. Cannot use auto-mutagens via Collar, and the action + resource cost to buff makes that a very bad idea for high L combat. Feeding other party members items is way better.)
If the Eidolon were able to benefit from the SMN's gear passives, allowing consumables Activates might not be necessary. I genuinely don't know if Paizo is more likely to let Eidolons benefit from more than weapon investment, or blanket allow the Activate action (as right now it's sorta-not-really allowed for them to Activate non-magical items).
I get that they are lazy/worried about needing to outline rules for Eidolon inventories, which they've stubbornly refused to clarify for familiars/etc, but that doesn't change how crippling it is to have a big "hit me" target that lacks the defensive flexibility granted by items, while simultaneously being hard-limited in it's available actions.
Your Eidolon is incredibly restrained by it's incompatibility with all other systems; if you cannot give it an action via SMN feat, then it's incapable of doing it.
I'd certainly want Paizo to make the Eidolon compatible via something like:
"If you gain a feat or ability that would alter your ability to make Strikes or make alternative attacks, you can instead grant it exclusively to your Eidolon. At your GM's discretion, when you take a Dedication feat of an archetype that your Eidolon would be capable of performing, you can instead grant the Archetype's benefits and actions exclusively to your Eidolon, although they typically cannot gain Class Archetypes."
but I'm pretty sure that kind of meaningful help isn't going to happen.
But yeah, the Eidlon being able to do non-number dependent actions via Archetypes would genuinely help SMN a lot. Even though it should be fine due to the Eidolon not having superior stats to the PC, I cannot see Paizo ever making such an impactful change.
I assume they'll eventually get around to a secrets of magic remaster. Summoner is fairly strong as is. Some of the initial eidolon abilities are pretty boring though. I'd also like to see more stat spreads for the eidolons or even the ability to just choose the stats ourselves. Not sure why it has to be just one of 2 builds.It is highly unlikely there is going to be a Secrets of Magic Remaster. A chuck of it would have to be replaced. They'll probably be a whole new book covering that content.
I do agree that some more Occult Eidolons, as well as one that are not Phantoms.
Actually, now that Dragons are tied to all four traditions, many the Dragon Eidolon could cover more than just Arcane?
Actually, Summoner could also do with a few more options for Arcane alongside Occult, since Arcane is currently only represented by Dragon and Construct.And like others have stated before, the issues Summoner has with Mythic are more an issue with Mythic, rather than Summoner.
...I just had a wacky thought, but what if Synergist was a Summoner Class archetype that combined Summoner with Magus?
I have to imagine if/when summoner gets remastered Dragon will be an option for each tradition given how dragons work now.
Being able to use tools for skills and Tandem Movement being a class feature are the top two changes for me.
I'd be so happy with just that, but I do think many of the class feats could use a lot of work. Some need to just need updated with the remaster in mind like the grab/knockdown/push feats (those could use a clarification on how they work with Act Together also), but some could use some straight up buffs or simply moved to lower levels.
One thing that's mostly for me is I think Reinforce Eidolon should also be a class feature. Minimally an alternate option to Boost Eidolon, but ideally, I think it's perfectly reasonable to have it free with Boost Eidolon at level 1. I think it deserves the 'feat to class feature' treatment even moreso than Tandem Movement now that Swarm Eidolons are a thing.
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Things I'm hoping for:
- Give the Eidolon its own skill progression instead of using the Summoner's skills. Yes, would make Summoner a skill monkey class, but why not. It really fits the class fantasy and the way it works now often feels very forced and weird.
- Let Eidolons use the tools their skills require.
- Just let Boost Eidolon's duration go up by heightening the spell. This shouldn't require a feat (and definitely not a successful non-KAS skill roll vs lvl based DC).
- Tandem Movement should be a class feature instead of a feat tax.
I don't really see what's forced or weird about how skills work for the eidolon.
I think the most perfect and elegant solution is what we currently have, because I don't see a reason why we would need to keep track of two sepperate skill proficiencies when more than half of those are likely going to be shared between summoner and eidolon anyways. However, I wouldn't be against feats or features like the Dual Studies or Skilled Partner feats that increased the proficiency in certain skills just for the eidolon alone. Tbh Dual Studies could be a baseline feature.
But besides that, the only problem I really have with the summoner is that it has a ton of lackluster feats and that boost eidolon is pretty much mandatory in your action rotation which kinda defeats the purpose of having 4 actions per turn if one of those is set in stone pretty much.
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I also need to shout that Eidolons RaW need something to compensate for the lack of gear based passive power.
Just checking: You are remembering that you can apply the Summoner's weapon bonuses to the Eidolon's attacks, yes?
Your eidolon's Strikes benefit from the fundamental and property runes on your handwraps of mighty blows. Alternatively, you can Invest a magic weapon (even though magic weapons can't normally be Invested) to share its fundamental and property runes with your eidolon.
Edit: And there is a similar entry for armor rune sharing too.
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As far as not allowing Eidolon to use toolkits, I'm surprised at how many people claim that the game is supposed to be run that way.
Yes, the rules are ambiguous and contradictory. The Gear and your Eidolon rule says that the Eidolon can't use Magical equipment without the Eidolon trait. The Eidolon trait says that equipment with the trait can be used and that equipment without the trait cannot be used.
But there is also the Ambiguous Rules rule that says what to do when faced with ambiguous or contradictory rules where one of the ruling options has problematic repercussions such as not allowing the Eidolon to use skill actions that they are trained in. Why are people claiming that they are 'just following RAW' by insisting that toolkits can't be used per the Eidolon trait rules, while ignoring both the Gear and your Eidolon rule and the Ambiguous Rules rule?
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I don't really see what's forced or weird about how skills work for the eidolon.
I think the most perfect and elegant solution is what we currently have, because I don't see a reason why we would need to keep track of two sepperate skill proficiencies when more than half of those are likely going to be shared between summoner and eidolon anyways.
Wild take, tbh.
Summoners are casters, and will not prioritize the physical stats.
That alone makes my PC's choice/need to max Athletics super painful and problematic. My PC is never going to make an Athletics skill check due to the lack of STR, but the Eidolon requires that spend to do so.
I have to commit a maxed skill prof to keep my Eidolon capable of maneuvers, in a way that animal companions, summoned creatures, etc, do not.
That sucks, a lot.
Dual Studies is a horrible trap of a feat, it even just stops at Expert. And because the feat's profs are split, you cannot even use the D.S. feat to get Athl up to Expert, then spend one prof upgrade to Master, etc. It'll just up the SMN's prof +1 instead.
It's a bad trap of a feat that scales up to Expert later than it should at 7, and stops there.
Not a good model for anything.
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Overall, Paizo needs to "pick a lane"
Option A: Eidolons are independent creatures from a build PoV, and therefore need to properly scale on their own while being very controlled and locked down from a buff/gear/modifer angle. The animal companion route.
Option B: Eidolons are customizable aspects of the PC, and it's "okay" for their numbers to suck, because the player is expected to customize and specialize them. At minimum, this would require Paizo to open permissions to things like passive gear bonus (boots of bounding, etc), but they really need ways to benefit from acquired non-SMN abilities, like meta-Strikes.
The higher the L, the more rare it becomes for a martial to vanilla Strike, and the more the SMN falls behind, badly.
The only valid ~meta-Strike that they had was the Knockdown & Grab feats, and it got indirectly nerfed badly. Previously, you could leave Athl at a low prof because of the auto-success.
Now, there's an unwritten requirement to max the Eidolon's Athl. Meaning the SMN needs to Invest an Athl item they will never use themself, or spend a class feat for a matching weapon trait on the Eidolon's Strike (and keep weapon runes maxed).
It's rather large splinter of unfun BS. Wild that SMN got such late errata for token issues like self-dmg on the still terrible summon feat, while doing nothing to address their strongest feats being gutted like that.
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Summoners are casters, and will not prioritize the physical stats.
That alone makes my PC's choice/need to max Athletics super painful and problematic. My PC is never going to make an Athletics skill check due to the lack of STR, but the Eidolon requires that spend to do so.
I have to commit a maxed skill prof to keep my Eidolon capable of maneuvers, in a way that animal companions, summoned creatures, etc, do not.That sucks, a lot.
That's the tradeoff.
A Summoner pair is one character's worth of budget. They get one character's worth of skill points. You can choose to put your proficiency boosts in skills for the Summoner to use or for the Eidolon to use. Added bonus if they can both use it. But you don't get more than one character's worth of skill boosts to allocate (unless using the 'trap option' feat to get additional separate skill boosts to allocate).
Those other options for a second body on the field have different drawbacks for their tradeoffs. Animal Companions are a bit squishy and aren't really good at skills anyway. Summons cost a spell slot or consumable for maybe a minute of use.
I do wish summoner got some good reaction of its own. You can get Eidolon's Opportunity but besides being a weaker attack of opportunity summoner doesn’t get any support feats that enhance it. Other classes with reactive strike have both a stronger reactive strike at base (because your eidolon is worse than a standard martial, lacking any class specific damage buff and a lot of item synergies) and support feats, as well as other reactions like shield block and dueling riposte.
While Eidolon’s Opportunity isn’t a *bad* feat, certainly being worth taking, it’s not exactly a consistent use of your reaction. Not when champion’s reaction is sitting right there with the ability to shield your own eidolon. If summoner had a good additional reaction with different trigger conditions to Eidolon’s Opportunity that would plug the hole in its action economy currently being filled by champion’s reaction. It doesn’t have to be as good either, just good enough that it’s not worth archetype lock in.
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Honestly a lot of the issues here feel like the result of a general lack of support for the summoner. Which is just kind of a larger issue in this edition for non-core classes.
The passive power issue could be somewhat remedied with more eidolon gear, the errata ignoring the fact that the eidolons non-basic attacks were severely nerfed either intentionally or not, we've only gotten a couple new eidolons - though admittedly the summoner is fairing better in the new subclass department than most, I would like to see another Occult eidolon that isn't a phantom.
No new feats, no new class archetypes. Draconic codex didn't update the Dragon eidolon in any way... I mean the summoner isnt special in this lack of support, kineticist is also often cited here and I imagine someone will mention another oft ignored class.
I do hope the remastered summoner receives lots of love, but if the theories of it appearing in the same book as Runesmith, Necromancer, and Magus are correct, it's going to be fighting for page space and likely won't have enough space to thrive.
text.text.
I guess I probably don't see it as a problem since I don't usually take Athletics unless the character is built around using its action, but besides that, I didn't even notice Dual Studies didn't scale up to legendary so yeah, its a really bad feat, which is sadly the norm for summoner feats.
But still, like Finoan said, I don't think its outrageous to ask for the summoner to take skill increases into a skill if they want their eidolon to be good at it. The fact that the summoner can ignore its physical attributes because those are "compensated" by the eidolon is a huge benefit you are seemingly ignoring, so "losing" skill proficiencies for your eidolon is IMO a trade off for that benefit. If Dual Studies went up to legendary, that could be a way for summoners to avoid "losing" those skill proficiencies, but that's more a feat problem (again, summoner feats being the problem here) and not a summoner problem if you ask me.
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A bit off topic, but I find funny that most TTRPGs suffer from power creep with their new options usually being stronger than already existing ones, while PF2e in a sense suffers from exactly the opposite problem. Not because newer content is worse or bad, but because it seems Paizo tries their harder to make balanced content now than they used to before. It kinda became the norm for most of the new archetypes to not be that good, when before it usually was a 50/50. New classes tend to have a higher amount of good feats than before though.
Personally, I'm guessing/hoping that the remastered summoner (and magus) will be included in the "impossible" book with the final versions of the necromancer and runesmith. In my mind, that would make sense.
As mentioned, the Secrets of Magic (or at least the first part of the book) would need to be completely re-written since the eight schools from AD&D/D&D are no longer part of PF2e.
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The impossible wait!
Things I'm hoping for:
- Give the Eidolon its own skill progression instead of using the Summoner's skills. Yes, would make Summoner a skill monkey class, but why not. It really fits the class fantasy and the way it works now often feels very forced and weird.
- Let Eidolons use the tools their skills require.
- Just let Boost Eidolon's duration go up by heightening the spell. This shouldn't require a feat (and definitely not a successful non-KAS skill roll vs lvl based DC).
- Tandem Movement should be a class feature instead of a feat tax.
I wouldn't mind seeing this.
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Honestly a lot of the issues here feel like the result of a general lack of support for the summoner. Which is just kind of a larger issue in this edition for non-core classes.
You forgot two things though:
1) Elemental Eidolon got updated in Rage of Elements.2) Battlecry! introduced the new Swarm Eidolon.
I will, however, agree that it feels weird that the Dragon Eidolon wasn't updated in the Dragonic Codex.
Also, to point out, there are currently only 12 Class Archetypes in the Remaster:
Avenger (Rogue)
Battle Harbinger (Cleric)
Bloodrager (Barbarian)
Elementalist (which can be applied to all arcane or primal casters)
Munitions Master (Inventor)
Palantine Detective (Investigator)
Runelord (Wizard)
Seneschal (Witch)
Spellshot (Gunslinger)
Vindicator (Ranger)
Warmage (Wizard)
Warrior of Legend (Fighter)
So, I don't think the Summoner in particular is being excluded.
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Just to add: Flexible Spellcaster and Wellspring Mage are also Class Archetypes. Flexible Spellcaster, however, only works on 3-slot casters and Wellspring Mage only works on repertoire casters.
So, I guess Summoner "technically" does have a Class Archetype via Wellspring Mage.
So the classes that actually don't have any class archetypes:
•Alchemist
•Champion
•Commander
•Exemplar
•Guardian
•Kineticist
•Magus
•Monk
•Swashbuckler
•Thaumaturge
I think these are the only ones without a Class Archetype option?
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I also need to shout that Eidolons RaW need something to compensate for the lack of gear based passive power.Just checking: You are remembering that you can apply the Summoner's weapon bonuses to the Eidolon's attacks, yes?
Your eidolon's Strikes benefit from the fundamental and property runes on your handwraps of mighty blows. Alternatively, you can Invest a magic weapon (even though magic weapons can't normally be Invested) to share its fundamental and property runes with your eidolon.Edit: And there is a similar entry for armor rune sharing too.
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As far as not allowing Eidolon to use toolkits, I'm surprised at how many people claim that the game is supposed to be run that way.
Yes, the rules are ambiguous and contradictory. The Gear and your Eidolon rule says that the Eidolon can't use Magical equipment without the Eidolon trait. The Eidolon trait says that equipment with the trait can be used and that equipment without the trait cannot be used.
But there is also the Ambiguous Rules rule that says what to do when faced with ambiguous or contradictory rules where one of the ruling options has problematic repercussions such as not allowing the Eidolon to use skill actions that they are trained in. Why are people claiming that they are 'just following RAW' by insisting that toolkits can't be used per the Eidolon trait rules, while ignoring both the Gear and your Eidolon rule and the Ambiguous Rules rule?
I'm surprised that you're surprised. This always happens when the rules contradict themselves like this.
Does it make sense that you can give an Eidolon a skill feat that it can't do because it can't use the toolkit for? Not really. Does it lead to bizarre outcomes where people have to ask if an Eidolon can interact with a door/chair/whatever, or does their inability to interact with things only happen when that thing becomes "equipment"? Yep. The implications are pretty wild.
But the RAW on the trait says it doesn't work, and despite RAW somewhere else not saying that, some people always go with the strictest RAW ruling.
But hey, Paizo's only had over four years to fix it by adding or deleting a single word (as appropriate for what was intended) and haven't gotten around to it yet.
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The eidolon sharing skill proficiencies with the summoner essentially grants advantage on all Recall Knowledge checks, which is neat. We had a running joke every time the beast eidolon succeeded at a knowledge check everyone else in the party failed at.
Even if Eidolons did not get a full set of skills on their own I think it may make some sense for str ones to get athletics and maybe dex ones getting acrobatics. The eidolons getting one scaling skill I don't think breaks anything and makes sense that the pseudomartial pet is good at the more physical side of things.
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Although I don't necessarily agree with all of the criticisms, I think the eventual Summoner remaster would be a good opportunity to improve a number of aspects of the class. Personally, I'd be interested in seeing many more eidolons, including an occult eidolon that's not just a phantom (like an aberration eidolon, for instance). I'd also quite like a proper synthesist class archetype or build for the Summoner, as that I think is a playstyle that could turn out really fun in 2e but would need a bit more support than just the Meld Into Eidolon feat.
Speaking of class archetypes a friend of mine homebrewed up a double martial archetype for summoner, with each summoner subclass getting its own unique tandem martial technique and weapon groups. The idea was to be the martial focused on action compression. Might be of interest to folks here.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1diuUpoatkadQxRPwHuLTGQ8hB-omzfvK4LBZ-OQ H44w/edit?usp=sharing
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summoner need to separate evolution from feat
10 evolution 10 class feat for everyone
also boost eidolon and reinforce eidolon have to go
too boring too weak
While a bit too brief of a post, the core idea is completely solid.
Right now, SMN gets a single blank chassis evolution feat at L1, and auto-acquires the Evolution Surge focus spell. So readers know that chassis evo feats are a possibility.
SMN could really benefit from the lessons of Kineticist, and gain a few bonus evolution feats as they level up. Like, this would help a rather large amount, as there are a lot of "fixer" feats that are too bad to spend a class feat on, but are required to keep the Eidolon usable. For example, the only way to up their movement speed passively is the L2 feat Alacritous Action, for a +10 status to speed. 0 chance I'm going to spend a real class feat on that, but if it is instead competing with other evo feats like Expanded senses, glider form, etc, then it suddenly becomes a good pick.
This would also benefit from another consideration on what should or should not be allowed for these "evolution + ___ slots." Imo, that pool of feats would benefit most if it allowed for [tandem] or [evolution] feats to be selected.
Tandem feats are another hard sell once you actually get used to playing summoner. You cannot do Act Together with them, and while on paper they are supposed to be the crazy powerful action-compression privilege of SMN, they kinda suck in actual practice.
For a while, Tandem Movement (1A so both SMN & Eidolon Stride/move) is kinda a "this should be baseline" ability.
But now that I'm L15, I've noticed the first time where my Eidolon did literally zero positive contribution to a combat. Don't get me wrong, I spent actions trying to get it to help, and it was able to make a single R.Strike attempt, which whiffed. I also cast El Arc from it's position because it could get a 2nd hidden foe in range, but it whiffed the Hidden check anyways.
In that combat, every "Eidolon action" spent was a waste, and that includes the build budget of picking Tandem Movement as a feat.
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In a system where it's normal for fights to mostly end in 3 turns, Summoner's existing design just doesn't make sense.
It expects you to be able to spend a lot of actions buffing and moving your Eidolon, when that'll just get you killed as levels go up.
(It's easy to forget how melee martials are expected to spend a lot of actions moving around. A caster that needs to move their Eidolon as a martial is simply a PC that will not have enough actions left for spells, lol.)
Summoner gaining new chassis evolution feats to spend as the Eidolon would normally get left in the dust would be a very low word count way to seriously help the class manage to retain value at high level play.
Right now, Summoners work best as 1-2 fight per day buff bots, using their matching high R of spells with pure casters* to stay equal to them in buff power, while avoiding DCs spells with which they will lag.
That maximizes the benefits of a 2nd body w/ martial accuracy, being 10 hp/Lvl, etc, while minimizing their downsides.
If the SMN needs to throw DCs spells, or fight a 3rd time, they kinda fall off a cliff as they try to make do with lower R spells.
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My #1 advice for SMN players right now is to archetype for 1 or 2 focus spells. You do get 1 free FP, and b/c the base focus spell is a buff that's a action:benefit disaster during combat, you really need to spend class feats to benefit from that FP, lol.
And the in-class Eidolon's Wrath is a very bad trap; it's an ally hurting emanation, and you'll waste actions getting the Eidolon into position. More than you'd guess, as your 25 spd Eidolon will need to run 20 ft beyond your spd boosted martials to avoid blasting them.
Eidolon's Wrath is a perfect case-in-point example of how SMN being conceptually tied to the Eidolon kinda "ruins" it from a class v class balance PoV.
While the +2d6 R spell might seem fine at a cursory glance, or perhaps even good on paper, the class was not designed with "real" gameplay in that dev's brain.
A fireball that you need to spend Actions to move the targeting spot into position is dead-on-arrival, even in a comparison among focus spells. The notion that you have to move the martial-half of the character around like that is so obviously problematic, that the author honestly should have known better even without playtesting. Not only do you have to spend the actions, but this is literally the 2nd body, one that's supposed to be contributing like a martial. The notion that the SMN player may choose to have the Eidolon move out of melee to position the AoE to hit more foes, is so outside the reality of pf2 gameplay, that it is as aggravating as it is disheartening.
All the author had to do what to think critically about the question of AoE type, for 10 flipping seconds.
Just lifting the hands off the keyboard for a second to ponder Emanation vs Cone vs Burst vs Line, etc, and it would have been rather obvious that the only wrong answer was Emanation.
But when you don't actually think about that, the default targeting for an ability called "Eidolon's Wrath" that is flavored to be a big "Your Eidolon explodes" spell is ofc going to be an Emanation.
It's like vibe coding, but for ttrpg development.
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To me, their dynamic of "Tandem Actions" is in a very good spot, so I think this aspect of the class should largely remain the same.
IMO, what I think the class needs more is Eidolons with more interesting abilities. They are an integral part of the character, yet very few them have actual interesting abilities. Also, the feats need to add more of those and less Strike modifiers.
Oh, and I think the class should receive a Class Archetype that enables them to realize the concept that Meld Eidolon was supposed to do, but clearly doesn't. The archetype could enable two playstyles that the base class can't, which is Melding into the Eidolon and fighting alongside it in melee. I would sacrifice spells as a whole (assuming the class gains more feats granting spell abilities like Kineticists do and more interesting Eidolons) in favor of a better martial chassis.
always confused by tandem each time reading summoner again
the wording really isn't new player friendly
kind of like 1e kineticist
just say summoner have 4 action per turn and max 3 of them can be used by eidolon or summoner
That's Act Together, rather than Tandem actions. But yes, Act Together's wording is complicated. I think it was done that way to avoid any possible exploits, but it does make it hard to parse out how it works.
Thematically and mechanically we definitely need more eidolons. There's so many obvious candidates that just aren't covered y the options we have (Glares at occult).To me, their dynamic of "Tandem Actions" is in a very good spot, so I think this aspect of the class should largely remain the same.
IMO, what I think the class needs more is Eidolons with more interesting abilities. They are an integral part of the character, yet very few them have actual interesting abilities. Also, the feats need to add more of those and less Strike modifiers.
Oh, and I think the class should receive a Class Archetype that enables them to realize the concept that Meld Eidolon was supposed to do, but clearly doesn't. The archetype could enable two playstyles that the base class can't, which is Melding into the Eidolon and fighting alongside it in melee. I would sacrifice spells as a whole (assuming the class gains more feats granting spell abilities like Kineticists do and more interesting Eidolons) in favor of a better martial chassis.
Yes, there has been a very unequal rate of new content for classes, some have been virtually ignored, while we have Rogues getting outright broken class features.
Steed Form is a Level 2 feat... but ALL Eidolons are Medium... and you need to wait until Level 8 to get Hulking Size... in order to get your Eidolon as a Large creature.
Why don't ALL Eidolons have Small, Medium and Large version, from the get go?
Steed Form is a Level 2 feat... but ALL Eidolons are Medium... and you need to wait until Level 8 to get Hulking Size... in order to get your Eidolon as a Large creature.
Why don't ALL Eidolons have Small, Medium and Large version, from the get go?
It's possible to ride a medium creature, and the feat is level 2 for those cases.
It's possible to ride a medium creature, and the feat is level 2 for those cases.Steed Form is a Level 2 feat... but ALL Eidolons are Medium... and you need to wait until Level 8 to get Hulking Size... in order to get your Eidolon as a Large creature.
Why don't ALL Eidolons have Small, Medium and Large version, from the get go?
Yeah, if you're Small or smaller.
However...
Your eidolon still must be at least one size category larger than you to ride it.
So... sucks to be you if you're a Human, I guess...